Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Collins]

I start with the young people at the heart of this. We have indeed debated this time and again, and it is important that we keep that going. I have been on a Safe Screens tour, speaking to young people across Harpenden and Berkhamsted—from Ashlyns school in Berkhamsted to St George’s school in Harpenden, and beyond. Girl guides have spoken to me of their concerns about online bullying and harmful content. When I visited local schools on my Safe Screens tour, young men told me that social media has shown them extreme content that they do not want to see, and despite their efforts to block or ban it, the algorithm brings it back. Young women have told me of their worries about the growing misogyny in online content. Together, young women and men alike have talked about the impact on their body image, bullying and the amount of time sucked up by social media—time they want to spend doing other things.

There is mounting evidence of the negative effects of our children’s exposure to an unsafe online environment. Every day, we hear the concerns of parents, the anxieties of teachers and, crucially, the voices of young people themselves, all crying out for action to ensure their safety online and calling for stronger regulation of their online experience. I realise that the Online Safety Act is moving forward, but it will not go far enough.

This is a matter of profound importance for the wellbeing of our nation’s children and young people. The digital world is now the fabric of our lives and the lives of young people—it is where they learn, connect and seek entertainment—and yet, as the digital landscape expands, so do the risks they face. As 5Rights highlights,

“the enormous potential of technology can only be realised when it is designed with children in mind”.

Parliament now has an opportunity, perhaps even an obligation, to help shape that technology. It is disappointing that the safer phones Bill was watered down, so we have tabled new clause 21 as a crucial step to strengthen protections for young people in the digital age. It seeks to bring UK data law in line with many of our European neighbours, by raising the minimum age at which internet companies can collect, process and store a user’s data without explicit parental consent to 16.

New clause 21 is not about banning children under the age of 16 from accessing social media. It is important that the responsibility lies with the social media companies to ensure that online spaces are age-appropriate, and to manage content and features. This new clause is a targeted and proportionate measure to require online services to change fundamentally how they handle children’s data. This crucial change will necessitate restricting the pervasive and often harmful influence of algorithms to make the platforms inherently less addictive and ultimately foster a more child-friendly digital environment.

It is imperative that digital technology is designed with the best interests of our children and young people at heart, ensuring that their rights and privacy are upheld—not as an afterthought, but with safety by design and by default. Furthermore, new clause 21 underscores the fundamental principle that the responsibility for managing content and features must remain firmly with the social media companies. We call for the establishment of robust digital standards to ensure that platforms prioritise child safety and privacy as their default setting, rather than as an optional extra.

Our duty to protect children online, however, cannot end with new clause 21. We call on the Government to take further action, such as explicitly recognising and treating children’s use of social media as a critical public health issue, thoroughly examining international best practice, identifying innovative solutions to the challenges we face, and developing evidence-based policies that will demonstrably improve online safety for children. I welcome the Government’s proposal last week to introduce a cross-Government safer screens taskforce to look at research into the multifaceted impact of social media on children’s wellbeing.

This is not an overnight phenomenon. Last year marked 20 years since Facebook was created and 18 years since the smartphone was launched. We now face mounting calls from young people, parents and teachers. Now is the time for greater action on the gaps left by the Online Safety Act. I urge the Government to recognise the urgent need for decisive action and to support new clause 21. This is a pivotal opportunity to strengthen protections for young people online and to cultivate a digital world where they can thrive, not merely navigate potential harms. Let us work together across party lines to ensure a safer and brighter digital future for all our children.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Turner.

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Lady is trying to do with new clause 21. I invite the Minister to address, as I am sure he will, her very specific point that it is not about restricting access to social media for people aged between 13 and 16, but about further restricting how social media is targeted at those age groups. After visiting schools in my constituency, I am minded to support her argument. At Ryde academy, I heard the reaction of young people to their school restricting access to their phones, which a school can only do during the school day.

I am interested to hear the Minister’s response to the quite reasonable proposition on how to restrict social media companies from targeting children aged 13 to 16. Restricting the way they collect their data sounds like a small, but meaningful, step that the Government could take.

[Chris Bryant]

I thought the debate might stray a little from the precise point my hon. Friend just made to into broader issues about young people’s use of smartphones and social media in general, and inevitably it has. This is a very live issue, of which the Government are painfully aware, as I tried to say in the debate last Friday. We are trying to work out the best way forward to a place where the rules that were implemented in the Online Safety Act, some of which only come into force in the spring—some have yet to get parliamentary approval; that will probably come in April—bed in properly and are adhered to before we take further action. That is simply because it is difficult to know otherwise whether the Online Safety Act has gone far enough. I wish that the Online Safety Act had been not the Online Safety Act 2023, but the Online Safety Act 2021 or 2019. Had it been, we might now be in a position to assess its effects.

In the debate on Friday I referred to the feasibility study commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from the University of Cambridge, which is working with other researchers. Work on that will finish in May, so I hope to have further information then. There is already a lot of guidance out there for parents, teachers and schools, but if we need to provide more informed guidance in the future, we will certainly look into that.

The precise targeting of young people by algorithms and so on is, at least theoretically, already dealt with by the Online Safety Act. That is why I do not think that new clause 21 is an appropriate measure to take forward at this time. Whether the age limit should be 13 or 16 was decided by the previous Government and agreed by Parliament after quite extensive consultation during the passage of the Data Protection Act 2018. All these matters have to be kept under review, and we are doing so in an urgent way, not least because a lot of Members are bringing up concerns raised by their constituents, families and so on.

I sometimes worry that the concentration solely on schools is to the detriment of the wider issues we are facing, not least because, as teachers readily admit, they only ever see children for about 20% of their time, and we need to set this in a wider context. I understand the motivation behind the new clause, but I will still resist it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 81 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 82 to 85 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 7 to 9 agreed to.

Clauses 86 to 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 89

Joint processing by intelligence services and competent authorities

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.